Shock jock and rookie Senator Derryn Hinch has quashed fears over his health after he was photographed napping in the chamber during his first day in the Senate.

On Tuesday, Senator Hinch was pictured nodding off while Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove opened the 45th Parliament.

In 2011 Mr Hinch, 72, underwent a lifesaving liver transplant after being diagnosed with liver cancer in 2007.

This came after he revealed months before that he had been suffering from dangerous liver complications.

When asked if Mr Hinch was in good enough health to deal with the rigours of being a Senator, a spokesperson for the man known as the ‘Human Headline’ told The New Daily there was nothing to worry about. 

“Senator Hinch is in excellent health,” the spokesperson wrote. “It has been five years since his liver transplant. He eats well and exercises.”

From 2006 to mid-2011, Mr Hinch battled severe illness. From 2006 he suffered from liver cirrhosis and septicaemia, which caused dramatic weight loss and his near death.

Then in September 2010 he announced that he had been battling liver cancer. Mr Hinch had at least two tumours surgically removed before undergoing a lifesaving liver transplant in mid-2011.

To make up for the nap, Mr Hinch tweeted a photo of himself as the first Senator to arrive in the chamber on Wednesday.

Taken the NoDoze. 1st person into empty Senate today. No cameras .Bugger. pic.twitter.com/5eRDBE27sk

— Derryn Hinch (@HumanHeadline) August 30, 2016

During his run for the Senate earlier in 2016, Mr Hinch told News Corp “I’ll work till I die”.

“According to my surgeon … I died on the table,” he said.

“I’ve held my own liver, I asked the doc, ‘Have you seen many as bad as that?’ and he said, ‘Usually at autopsies’. He said I had maybe two weeks left [to live].”

Mr Hinch revealed to Marius Benson on ABC News Radio that he had a designated nap spot while he was on radio.

“I had a bed in the office next to me and I grabbed 20 minutes’ sleep before I came on air,” Mr Hinch said. “Ironically that was, about, just after 3.30pm [around the time he fell asleep in the Senate], so maybe I’ve got to get out of the habit.”

The New Daily asked Mr Hinch’s spokesperson if he had a similar arrangement at Parliament House, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Bernie Sanders, at 74, took part in a heated Democratic primary campaign in the US. Photo: AAP

At 72, Hinch joins a growing alumni of high-profile septuagenarian politicians around the world in 2016.

United States Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is 70.

His Democrat rival Hillary Clinton is 68. She had to overcome 74-year-old Bernie Sanders, who ran a hard-fought campaign – to secure her party’s nomination.

Ronald Reagan was the United States’ oldest president after assuming office at the age of 69.

If elected, Mr Trump would be older than Mr Reagan was on election day, while Mrs Clinton would be just a few months younger.

Mrs Clinton has largely avoided criticism, but Mr Sanders was dogged by his age throughout his campaign, with a column by Chicago Tribune‘s Steve Chapman summing up the prevailing mood.

After Mr Sanders defended his age by saying he was in good health and “let’s not be ageist”, Mr Chapman wrote: “But good health is less reliable the older you get. And there’s nothing ageist in recognising the genuine risks of an elderly president.

“The job is too important to entrust to a 75-year-old man, and it’s too hard to remove an impaired president,” he said. “Whatever positive attributes he has for the job, voters need to face the fact: Sanders is just too old.”